From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/6239 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Juergen Koslowski Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: EVIL terminology Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2010 11:15:51 +0200 (MEST) Message-ID: Reply-To: Juergen Koslowski NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1285635748 23169 80.91.229.12 (28 Sep 2010 01:02:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 01:02:28 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca (categories list) Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Tue Sep 28 03:02:27 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtpy.mta.ca ([138.73.1.139]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1P0OaQ-00025P-RD for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Tue, 28 Sep 2010 03:02:27 +0200 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:49033) by smtpy.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1P0OZU-0005wF-JM; Mon, 27 Sep 2010 22:01:28 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1P0OZO-000516-Hr for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Mon, 27 Sep 2010 22:01:22 -0300 Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:6239 Archived-At: Dear all, In photo circles EVIL is currently used as an acronym for "Electronic Viewfinder Interchangable Lens" cameras, a new form of cameras that do away with the optical viefinder. Probably this is as firmly toungue-in-cheek as the use of the term "evil" in certain areas of category theory. And while I don't know if many photographers are offended by this term, this obviously is the case with some of our colleagues in category theory. While I'm sure that everybody agrees that the concept as such is important and worth studying, the ongoing dispute over the terminology seems to be rather counterproductive. Of course, one problem with mathematidcal terminology is that so many terms are overloaded by now (natural, continuous...) Any term borrowed from the realm of everyday life will carry certain overtones (and will irritate non-mathematicians). On the other hand, acronyms can come across a clumsy and an impediment to speach (ufl-functors). Maybe it is not too late to find a clever new name for the concept that does convey the negative connotations intended by the original adopters of "evil" without being so offensive to others (we don't want to wait 30 or more years before changing terminology, cf. the 2005/06 discussion concerning "cartesian" and "cocartesian"). Peter Freyd was always very inventive coining new terminology, even though not much of it caught on. Let me start by proposing "equi-unstable" and "precarious" as possible replacements for "evil". -- Juergen -- Juergen Koslowski If I don't see you no more on this world ITI, TU Braunschweig I'll meet you on the next one koslowj@iti.cs.tu-bs.de and don't be late! http://www.iti.cs.tu-bs.de/~koslowj Jimi Hendrix (Voodoo Child, SR) [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]